I quit a tenured position at a good school in 1991 at the relatively young age of 41. One of my reasons was the increasing political correctness and groupthink of the universities which, since the '60s, have become leftist seminaries. Now it is far, far worse. So why would any right-thinking person want an academic post? Roger Kimball:
Consider, to take just one example, the fate of our colleges and universities. Once upon a time, and it was not so long ago, they were institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of the highest values of our civilization. Today, most are dedicated to the repudiation of truth and the subversion of those values. In short, they are laboratories for the cultivation of wokeness. This is especially true, with only a handful of exceptions, of the most prestigious institutions. The tonier and more expensive the college, the more woke it is likely to be.
There are two central tenets of the woke philosophy. The first is feigned fragility. The second is angry intolerance. The union of fragility and intolerance has given us that curious and malevolent hybrid, the crybully, a delicate yet venomous species that thrives chiefly in lush, pampered environments.
The eighteenth-century German aphorist G. C. Lichtenberg observed, “Nowadays we everywhere seek to propagate wisdom: who knows whether in a couple of centuries there may not exist universities for restoring the old ignorance.” Doubtless Lichtenberg thought he was being clever. How astonished he would have been to discover that he was a prophet, not a satirist.
You should carefully read the whole essay. Kimball has wise and very timely things to say about free speech and its limits.
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